January 2011
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Too Many Chutes, Not Enough Ladders
(The electricity went out for about 30 seconds in our department store. Shortly after the blackout, the following conversation took place.)
Customer #1: “It was weird how the power went out like that.”
Customer #2: “Yeah, but at least we weren’t in the elevator. Can you imagine?”
Customer #1: “Oh yeah, that would have been pretty bad. But not as bad as it would have been on the escalator.”
Customer #2: “The escalator?”
Customer #1: “Yeah, just think of how scary that would be! The escalator loses power and then woosh!” *makes a hand gesture to represent stairs going flat, becoming a slide*
Customer #2: “Oh yes, that would be awful!”
Customer #1: “I hope all the people who were on the escalator are okay.”
Customer #2: *shakes her head sadly* “Woosh…”
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Do Nothing for Two Minutes →
Two minutes of calm. It says a lot about me that a) I treated this as a challenge rather than a chance to relax, and b) that I half expected it to start trying to trick me into moving the mouse and/or using the keyboard.
An important thing I learned today.
eush:
You can sometimes figure out Saturnian meter by singing “Mary had a little lamb”.
Check it out!
Mary had a little lamb, || little lamb, little lamb
Partim errant; nequinont || Graeciam redire
It makes the inability of the Greeks to return home sound so cute!
So, Mary had a little lamb is in Saturnian? Cool!
… where was Saturnian even used?
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Tarot Pokemon
ryleymo:
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-1-16) →
植松伸夫 (19)
Aerosmith (10)
菅野よう子 (10)
Mogwai (10)
Jonathan Coulton (9)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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Skynet meets the Swarm: how the Berkeley Overmind... →
A fascinating insight into how a group of university students built a Starcraft AI that could beat a retired pro player (via RPS).
“You’ve been doing nothing for long enough: go do something more worthwhile.”
– Ovid, Amores 3.1, very loosely translated to reflect my feelings regarding my first real week of classes. (via eush)
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Opinion: On Banning Music, Movies, and Video Games... →
A summary of this Sandiego.com column on violence in the media, which comes to the same conclusion that I have: if you ban everything offensive, you’re left with nothing.
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Tiger Mask inspires rampant charity throughout... →
Summary: in emulation of a character from an anime, “fifteen various schools, orphanages and other children’s centers have reported receiving mysterious backpack donations” from the main character, each containing a substantial amount of money. This is actually really heart-warming.
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Dot Dot Dot - Animated →
Got this from RPS. It’s all over the net, apparently. And it’s great.
Note 1: the guy who did the animation is NOT the guy doing the reading.
Note 2: this is a Newgrounds video, so there may be NSFW stuff in the background.
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The atheist's greatest nightmare: the banana. →
Long post is gonna be long, sorry. The pertinent part:
The banana-the atheist’s nightmare.
Note that the banana:
1. Is shaped for human hand
2. Has non-slip surface
3. Has outward indicators of inward content: Green—too early,Yellow —just right, Black—too late.
4. Has a tab for removal of wrapper
5. Is perforated on wrapper
6. Bio-degradable wrapper
7. Is shaped...